This is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09/289,202, filed Apr. 9, 1999, which is incorporated by reference.
The invention relates generally to manually transportable pouches or cases for holding and carrying various articles or items, and more particularly to such portable pouches or cases having pockets, loops or other receptacles for receiving and carrying tool items or accessories, such as tool bits, drill bits, tool chucks, bit holders, or the like.
A wide variety of portfolios, pouches, cases or other such containers or carriers have been devised for holding and organizing tools, tool accessories or other small articles. Many of these carriers have been constructed of flexible fabrics or other materials such that the holder or carrier can be unfolded from a relatively small closed configuration to a larger open configuration, thus providing access to articles removably retained in the holder or carrier.
Frequently, however, such prior art carriers have been found to be lacking in terms of the ease or convenience with which tool bits or other articles are stored or removed by the user. In addition, many of these carriers have been designed for a very specific application or for a narrow range of particular applications and have not been well-suited for use in other applications. Still other carriers have been found to be too large or cumbersome for convenient transportation or use on the person of the user.
A number of the above-mentioned prior art holders or carriers have been provided with belt loops or other such attachment structures that allow them to be mounted onto the person or clothing of the user or to be temporarily mounted or supported by ladder rungs, pipes, railings, or the like. These prior art holders and carriers have not, however, provided for selective alternate methods of attachment to the user's clothing or person or to various external items or structures at the worksite. Because of this, users have been forced to use strings, wires, clips, hooks, or other such separate attaching items in order to obtain a wide range of holding, transporting and mounting capabilities.
Accordingly, the present invention seeks to address these concerns by providing a folding pouch-type carrier or case that is capable of being mounted upon the belt or other item of the user's clothing in more than one way, as well as being conveniently and easily mountable to a wide variety of other external mounting members or structures present at a worksite, including being easily mounted on hooks, pegs, or nails or the like. The preferred carrier or case is adapted for conveniently holding, storing and transporting small articles such as tool bits, drill bits, driver bits, chucks, bit holders, and other related tools or accessories.
In the preferred embodiments, the carrier includes a closure flap or panel and a number of article-holding panels, with adjacent pairs of panels being separated by relatively narrow upper and lower end spacer panels. All of the panels are preferably composed of a thin, flexible nylon or nylon-type outer fabric or material covering two sides of an inner composite stiffener that is also flexible but is stiffer than the outer fabric. The stiffeners are each in turn composed of a layer of urethane foam padding, a layer of polyethylene, and a layer of polyvinyl chloride in a preferred embodiment. The layers of outer material are continuous from one panel to the next and are preferably stitched together between the spaced-apart stiffeners of adjacent panels to form living hinges along fold lines, thus allowing the pouch or carrier to be easily and conveniently folded into a neat compact closed configuration and to be quickly unfolded into a convenient open configuration for access to its contents. One or more of these panels or spacer panels can also include a grommet or other reinforced "hanghole" in order to allow the carrier to be suspended on a nail, peg, hook or other such external elongated member.
The upper and lower spacer panels, in a preferred form of the invention, provide a greatly increased interior pouch volume for storing larger or thicker items, as well as presenting a neat, relatively rectangular side profile when the pouch is closed. When mounted on a user's belt or in other similar upright positions, the lower or outer panel folds away (usually merely under the force of gravity) to a convenient open-pouch position as soon as the closure is pulled upward by the user to release the preferred hook-and-loop, snap-type, or other such closure fastener. The preferred pouch or article carrier also includes both interior and exterior storage pockets with sides that are "accordioned" or easily expandable and contractible in order to accommodate varying sizes of articles stored therein. As such, the storage pockets volumetrically diverge from their "bottom" or closed ends toward their "upper" or open ends and are releasably secured in their closed positions by way of hook-and-loop fasteners, snap-type fasteners, or other such suitable fastening or closure devices. This greatly increases the volume of the pocket interior and accommodates "over stuffing", while still maintaining a minimal pocket side profile when closed. A preferred form of the pouch or article carrier according to the present invention has at least one of such storage pockets exposed for easy and convenient access even when the pouch or article carrier is in its closed configuration.
Preferably the interior of the pouch or article carrier includes one or more rows of elastic loops for removably receiving tool bits or other such items. The preferred tool loops are closed at their "bottom" ends and can elastically expand to accommodate and snugly engage a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and types of tools, tool bits, or other such items. To this end, when more than one such row of elastic loops are provided on a pouch or carrier according to the invention, the loops on one of the rows are preferably larger than those on one or more of the other rows, thus providing for even more flexibility and range of bit holding or article-holding capabilities. In the preferred example disclosed herein, one of such rows of elastic loops and one of the above-described storage pockets are provided on each of the tool-holding or article-holding panels mentioned above, with the loops on one row being laterally staggered with respect to the loops of the other row in order to minimize interference with each other when the pouch is closed.
A two-way belt attachment loop or strap structure is provided on the rear of the preferred pouch or article carrier and includes a fixed loop or strap with both of its ends permanently or fixedly secured to the back of the pouch or carrier. The user's belt can thus be threaded through, or removed from, the fixed belt loop when the belt is removed from the user's body. The preferred pouch or carrier also includes a selective alternative attachment structure with a releasable loop or strap having one end fixedly secured to the back of the pouch and an opposite end releasably securable to the back of the pouch by way of a snap-type or hook-and-loop fastener, for example. The releasable end of this strap can thus be slipped over or around and inside the user's belt while the belt is being worn, as well as being easily and conveniently passed over, around, or through external members or structures present at a worksite. This, of course, provides the user with convenient close-at-hand access to the contents of the pouch or carrier while performing various work tasks.
This two-way selective alternative attachment loop structure in the preferred embodiments of the invention thus accommodates users who need a very secure belt attachment or other such mounting and who anticipate little (if any) need for removal of the pouch during the work day. The two-way attachment structure also accommodates users who need to remove the pouch several times in a day, allowing them to do so without removing their belts, as well as allowing the pouch to be easily removed from the use's belt and attached to a ladder rung, pipe, railing, or similar structure at the worksite as either an alternate or an additional option to the abovementioned grommet or reinforced hang-hole.
Additional objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.